This bed will never quite be full
by X5thAvenueX
Summary: They're both long past the point of analysing words and reading minds. Tomorrow they will start again.


**This bed will never quite be full**

_They're both long past the point of analysing words and reading minds. Tomorrow they will start again._

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS.

I still have to finish _This isn't quite infatuation_, but I just thought of this and figured I may as well post it now.

* * *

_She wakes, and she is alone, and she tries so very hard not to care._

---

_1. The silent martyr who won't shut up_

He wakes up alone. (Repeat).

He wakes up alone between cold sheets with the taste of alcohol in his mouth and the thump of a heavy baseline still playing in his head. Writhing bodies dance behind his eyelids and he is suddenly very glad for the empty space beside him.

He stumbles from this bed that he hates and into the shower; turned up so hot he's sure it's cold. The clothes he wore last night are in a pile on the floor and a bar napkin sticks out of the pocket of his jeans. Digits, and a heart, and a name. Marie. He doesn't even remember the colour of her hair.

He shakes his head, attempts a laugh, and throws it in the trash, and he goes to work wearing his very best suit and his very biggest smile.

---

_2. Mistakes we make when we close our eyes_

It's 12.58am when she is woken by her ringing phone. She does not bother to check the caller ID.

"Hey" She waits patiently in the dark. "What're you doing?"

"It is the middle of the night, what do you think I am doing?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"Do you?"

His laugh bounces off the shadows.

She hangs up. She does not go back to sleep.

---

_3. Honey dust, death, and other things that get sent in the mail_

A mail room guy grabs her ass. She could kill him in an instant but Tony beats her to it.

She corners him in the break room later, hesitant, and she does not tell him thank you. He tells her 'you're welcome' and she kisses him to shut him up. He can't quite place the taste.

Her eyes are shy and her skin is unreserved. The bruises on his face will be gone by the morning.

As she walks out, her fingers linger in the doorway just a little too long, and the first time she leaves him before the sun has risen they will do the same.

---

_4. Your hands are clasped but it's not in prayer_

He gets a message from Jeanne today. It's been a year and she just wants to talk.

He deletes it and doesn't call her back. When Ziva looks up with raised eyebrows he tells her it's nothing. 'It always is' she replies.

Her gaze travels North-East. He can't drag his eyes from a spot on the floor to his left.

When they grab their gear on Gibbs' command, her eyes are tired and disappointed and her frown doesn't quite meet them.

On days like this he's wishing he misses Kate a little more, and imagining Ziva dressed like Ananke. He daydreams of her dancing eyes and hands and words and the way she's sometimes more cruel than him.

They end up at a bar later. Routine, perhaps. Drinks and laughs and they talk about nothing. 'I'm sorry' he tells her, one hand holding open the door of the cab, the other on her cheek.

She beats him back to his apartment.

---

_5. All roads lead home_

He watches her in the rear view mirror as she loads the bullets into her gun. Click-click-click they all slide in, and soon they will be flying out.

He knows this almost as well as her.

First there was the metal box, and that was followed by the hotel. (Fifty rules and one green dress lay in a puddle at her feet)

Then there was Paris, and now there is this. (Pastries and words she can speak, and he can't. A bed too few, a lie to many. A girl with no past and a man with no future. Nothing but the present and the wind-in-hair and the surging feeling of barely keeping up with this life. 'Please fasten your seat belts as we descend'**.** The cabin lights go out. Her fingers are on his. She's looking straight at him)

They get the killer. He gets a broken nose and she gets a split lip. They both ooze blood for hours afterwards.

Back to the office, to Gibbs and McGee, to lies and truth and regular names. To hiding and running and chasing something, perhaps each other, perhaps not at all.

Yes, all roads lead home. All roads lead back to this. All he is leads to her. He's at a dead end.

---

_6. For everything there is a season_

This is the night she turns up at his apartment, eyes bright where his are red, head clear where his is clouded with cheap vodka.

'We are all alone' she told him, but first she asked about phone sex.

They sit by side on his sofa, watching The Fugitive and avoiding each others eyes. Tony talks along with the actors and Ziva laughs when Tommy Lee Jones makes his speech.

By the time the credits roll they are in the bedroom and she is panting above him. He cannot remember who made the first move, and doesn't really care, but if she ever brings it up he'll swear on his mothers grave it was her.

She winces when he pushes against the bruise the bullet made when it hit her vest, but neither pull away.

This is not making love. This is very far from it.

This is not making love, this is not tender and caring. It is hot and heavy and fast and painful. It is ugly and it is harsh and it is truth. It is a desperate fight to feel alive, catalysed by the fact that she almost died today and they could both die tomorrow.

She wasn't lying and is a screamer, and he still can't keep his damn mouth shut (ohgodyes,harderfasterfuck) but they never say each others names.

He wears his badge on his sleeve and his heart in his pants. She wears a gun on her hip and absolutely nothing else.

---

_She wakes, and he is warm beside her, and when he says her name it sounds so very much like love._


End file.
